PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The environment in airplane cabins becomes a public concern whenever a new or re-emerging pathogen, such as the MERS coronavirus or the Influenza A (H7N9) virus, is in the news. Each report of an outbreak raises questions about whether aircraft cabin air can transmit these harmful pathogens. Engineers from the Aerospace group at Pall Corporation have teamed up with scientists from the company’s Medical group to develop high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA1) filters for aircraft cabin air and validate their effectiveness in removing microbes. Following healthcare and pharmaceutical industry standard practices, an independent laboratory2 has tested Pall’s full-sized aircraft cabin air filter elements at their rated air flow. The lab demonstrated that Pall HEPA cabin air filters have a microbial removal efficiency of greater than 99.999% with bacteria and viruses. The H7N9 “avian flu” and H1N1 “swine flu” viruses, as well as the MERS coronavirus, are similar in size and other parameters to the virus used to test the Pall filters. Once captured by the HEPA filter media, the survival rate of microorganisms in the aircraft environment is very low. 3